1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a Foley catheter assembly, and more particularly, to a Foley catheter assembly for inserting a Foley catheter into the bladder for artificial urination.
2. Related Art
Artificial urination is drainage of urine by inserting a catheter into the bladder through the urethra. A Foley catheter is a urinary catheter for patients who continuously need artificial urination for a predetermined period of time. Artificial urination using a Foley catheter is widely applied to withdraw urine from patients under intensive case, general surgical patients, patients who have undergone urologic surgery, or patients who are otherwise unable to urinate or to measure urine output.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating a state in which a Foley catheter 10 is inserted into the bladder for artificial urination. The Foley catheter 10 is a device including an insertion tip 11 and a drainage tube 13, which are inserted into the urethra, for withdrawing urine to a urine collection bag.
However, a process of performing a medical treatment for inserting the Foley catheter 10 into the bladder is troublesome in preparation and treatment stages thereof. A sterile Foley catheter set including drapes, Kelly forceps, and three containers respectively containing lubricating jelly, a saline solution for inflating a balloon, and alcohol swabs needs to be prepared in the hospital. In the preparation, a nurse opens the Foley catheter set, removes a wrapping case from a Foley catheter and a syringe for inflating the balloon, and adds the lubricating jelly, saline solution for inflating a balloon, and alcohol swabs to each of the containers. In order to prevent contamination in each stage, precautions need to be taken. Thus, the preparation is tedious and time-consuming. In terms of hospital management, such preparation of the Foley catheter set and preparation for the treatment may bring about increase in costs and waste of labor of nurses who are highly qualified. Thus, there is a need to develop a device and method of simplifying the preparation process.
Meanwhile, careful treatment is required by a medical professional such as a doctor or nurse to prevent contamination and to insert the catheter into a patient without pain. The prepared Foley catheter set is carefully opened, and the Foley catheter 10 is separated from an inner wrapping case while wearing sterile gloves. The syringe is filled with a saline solution and connected to a saline supply tube 17b to test the balloon 15. Then, a discharge tube 17a is grasped by a Kelly clamp in order not to stain surroundings by preventing leakage of urine during the treatment. An area to be treated is sterilized, a drape is placed over legs of a patient to prevent the Foley catheter 10 from being contaminated during insertion thereof, and then the treatment is performed. In order to smoothly inserting the Foley catheter 10 while minimizing pain, the lubricating jelly is coated over the Foley catheter 10, the urethra is opened with one hand, and the Foley catheter 10 is inserted into the urethra using the other hand. This process is troublesome, time-consuming, and uncomfortable. In addition, although the lubricating jelly needs to be sufficiently and uniformly coated over the Foley catheter 10 to minimize pain, continuous lubrication may cause contamination of portions such as hands or other body parts of the medical professional.
In addition, the patient may feel pain due to friction with mucosa of the urethra while the insertion tip 11 of the Foley catheter 10 is inserted into the urethra of the patient. Thus, the patient may feel serious pain when the medical professional fails to uniformly control insertion speed and insertion force.